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How-To Geek

Our tip last week about inserting random text was extremely popular, but virtually everybody said it would be much better if you could insert lorem ipsum text into the document instead of random content from the help file…

Turns out, in Word all you have to do is use =lorem() instead of =rand() and you’ll be able to insert the lorem text instead. We found out about this from a comment by reader Will, who gets the reader of the week award… which I just made up.

Comments (13)

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

“Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.”

I remember something from Office 97, but I forget how it was done exactly. I remember we had opened Excel, then went to all most the last column, in all most the last box, typed something in, and then a Word 97 blank document would pop up, and every time you hit a specific key, it would flash the words “BILL GATES SUCKS” or something to that affect…I wonder if anyone else remembers that? If someone could remember how to do that, I will have to reinstall Office 97 again! Thanks!

The function only works when it’s the only text in the paragraph. In other words, entering =lorem() after existing text in the same paragraph will not generate the text; the text =lorum() will remain as is.